'Kill List' review: a hit-man thriller takes a turn for the weird

"Kill List," a small, tight film by director and co-writer Ben Wheatley (“Down Terrace”) about two killers-for-hire returning to the field after a botched job plays like low-key British Tarantino until act three, when it goes off the rails in such a fashion as to suggest it never knew there were rails underneath it to begin with.

Neil Maskell, plays our hero, Jay, a tightly wound, underemployed, and sporadically unhappily married hit man with temper issues. After an overly intense dinner party, he’s lured back to his bloody line of work by his glib old partner Gal (Michael Smiley). But the job is strange from the start, and the strangely placid reactions of their prey at the prospect of impending death drives Jay into blood-crazy rages. And then, as they near the end of the job, things get especially weird -- like, “Wicker Man” weird.

There’s atmosphere and tension and dark humor and some truly shocking gore throughout. But the positive impression all of that makes pales next to a headscratching finale that is admittedly well-executed but is also undeniably perverse and borderline random. Maybe you’ll go with it, simply out of shock. I, alas, could not.